Actuary Named as The Best Job of 2013

Careercast.com (link below, HT to WSJ.com) has released their list of the best and worst jobs of 2013.

Jobs are ranked based on four "Core Criteria" - environment, income, outlook and stress. Each of these four "Core Criteria" have subcategories that are used to generate a score. For instance, "Stress" has 11 different "stress factors", including:

-deadlines
-physical demands
-meeting the public
-life of another at risk

All of these points of data are used to generate a score that is used to rank jobs from best to work. The lower the score, the better the job.

--

Here are the top five jobs for 2013, according to Careercast.com:

1. Actuary
Score: 123
Median Salary: $87,650

2. Biomedical Engineer
Score: 133
Median Salary: $81,540

3. Software Engineer
Score: 136
Median Salary: $90,530

4. Audiologist
Score: 140
Median Salary: $66,660

5. Financial Planner
Score: 159
Median Salary: $64,750

--

What would you guess would be the worst job to have in 2013?

If you guessed newspaper reporter, you would be right.

The newspaper industry continues to take a beating - newspapers are shutting down across the country, and those that have been able to survive have done so by cutting costs (and jobs).

Newspaper reporters have a high stress job (constant deadlines, constant need to find new stories to write about) that doesn't pay very well. According to the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics), the median salary for a newspaper reporter is just $36,000.

This list has already generated a tremendous amount of response online, with many people taking exception to the fact that enlisted military personnel and oil rig worker have been included in the list of the worst jobs.